Facebook: friend or foe?

The brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg has paved its way to become arguably the biggest social media platform of our time – but is it good for business?

What was originally intended to be an online chat forum for a handful of university friends has transformed into a global phenomenon with more than one billion daily active users.

Many of these users are business people who use Facebook as a cheap way of advertising, creating awareness of their business and generating customers through online marketing.

But while it is wise, even necessary, to include Facebook in your digital marketing, there are some hidden dangers you need to be aware of

National and international property management trainer Darren Hunter says the biggest mistake people who have a business-based Facebook page can make is coming across as fake or insincere.

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“Your audience knows if you’re faking it,” he says.

“Be real to your audience and they will respect you too. Post things that place the person back into what you do. You can post straight business themes, or add some humour and personality and see your engagement factor grow. Having a happy or difficult day? Post it.”

Mr Hunter says it’s important to “understand the engagement language” of Facebook.

“Facebook is all about getting your audience to like, comment and share your posts,” he says.

“Once you start getting these things happening, Facebook algorithms will recognise that the ‘weight’ of your post is better than others and will start feeding it to more of your audience. Anything boring simply won’t get fed to your audience.”

Mr Hunter says if you really want to grow your business successfully using Facebook you need to squash the idea that it will be easy – or free.

“If you want to reach your audience and get more likes to your page, you will need to pay for an effective advert to do this with the right targeting. Then when you grow your audience, Facebook then wants you to pay to reach your audience by boosting your posts,” he explains.

“Think that’s double-dipping? When you consider Facebook has an audience bigger than the biggest country in the world, they really hold the cards of influence.

“Set a budget and invest in Facebook, play by their rules and enjoy the results.”

Once you have a handle on the basics of Facebook for business, Mr Hunter says you need to frame yourself as a trusted expert.

“Establishing your audience is one thing, but when you have them, become the expert and feed them with useful information to assist your audience to solve their issues and problems,” he says.

“When you do so, they think you’re an expert and when they want to do business, they will want to do business with the person they think does it the best – you and your company.

“At the end of the day, Facebook is a ‘like’ economy. The more interesting and real your posts are to your audience, the more they ‘like’ you. When they like you, they like what you’ve got, [which is] your services.”

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